The creator campaign playbook.

Start with the moment

A creator campaign works when the people in it already live what you sell. For the Supernova running launch with adidas and DICK'S, the creators were everyday runners filmed on their own routes. That is the whole idea in one line: real runners, real routes, the shoe on their feet.

Before anyone is cast, write down the launch, the date and the one thing a viewer should feel. Every other decision in this playbook hangs off that sentence.

Cast in tiers

One kind of creator gives you one kind of reach. A brief we answered for adidas and JD Sports asked for creators in four tiers. Each tier reaches a different crowd and earns trust in a different way, so a good roster mixes them.

The same brief tied the roster to moments across the year: All Star Weekend, March Madness, Women's History Month, the NBA Playoffs, the WNBA and Pride. Casting to moments gives every post a reason to exist on the day it goes out.

• Athletes: credibility on the field and the court.
• Musicians and artists: culture, sound and a crowd that follows them anywhere.
• Content creators: reach, and a voice their followers already trust.
• Fashion: how the product looks off the field and on the street.

Seed, brief and ship

The Supernova activation plan covered sourcing, product seeding, briefs, shipping, live analytics and community run clubs, with a run club event on 22 February 2024. Seeding gets the product into hands early, so the films show it worn, not unboxed.

Write one brief per creator group, and one per city when the city matters. For Summer of Soccer with adidas and DICK'S there was a brief for New York, Los Angeles and Miami, and fan films called Cultural Stories.

• The launch, the date and the moment it ties to
• The one feeling the film should leave
• What has to be in it: the product, the line, the tag
• Where they have freedom: their route, their voice, their edit
• The posting window and the approval steps
• How the film can be used: organic, whitelisted or paid

Produce or guide

Some campaigns need a team on the day. Others need a creator filming on their own phone with a clear brief. We do both: we shoot with creators or guide them to make their own. For adicolor with adidas and DICK'S, captions and approvals were handled creator by creator, so nothing posted off brief.

Volume matters too. Supernova ran on 22 creators and 58 films, which let one launch show up in many feeds at once instead of in one big post.

Post, whitelist, then pay

Organic posting is the start. Whitelisting lets a brand run a creator's post as an ad from the creator's own account, so the ad still sounds like a person. Paid media then decides how far it travels.

For BlueChew we cast creators, produced three creator ads and ran them as paid media on Meta. They earned 12.4M Meta impressions. Creator ads work best when the brand is happy to let a real person do the talking.

Agree on usage before anyone films: how long the brand can run the post, on which channels, and whether it can be cut into new ads. Settling those terms after the films exist is slow, and it can keep your best film off the feed.

Report at 30, 60, 90

Report three times. The first report shows the first wave, the second shows what the paid push and the long tail added, and the third tells you what to make next. Report views, engagement and what the audience said in the comments, and keep the films that worked for the next round.

Reporting is also how you build a record. Across six creator campaigns for adidas and JD Sports, our creator work earned 11.3M organic views. Supernova alone: 22 creators, 58 films, 2.59M views.

The checklist

• The launch, the date and the one feeling, written down
• Casting tiers chosen: athletes, musicians and artists, content creators, fashion
• Each creator matched to a moment in the calendar
• Product seeded early and shipping tracked
• One brief per creator group, one per city when it matters
• Captions and approvals checked creator by creator
• A team booked, or creators guided to film their own
• Usage agreed up front: organic, whitelisting, paid
• Posting windows set for every creator
• Reports booked at 30, 60 and 90 days
• The best films kept for the next round